- If you're wondering how to manage
YouTube comments more effectively and efficiently,
then we're about to run through some awesome YouTube tools
that make YouTube channel comment management much easier,
and will save you a ton of time.
(upbeat music)
Hey it's Justin Brown here from Primal Video
where we help you amplify your business
and brand with video.
If you're new here, make sure you click
that subscribe button, and all the links to everything
we mentioned in this video,
you can find in the description box below.
So let's jump into it.
YouTube comments are a super powerful
way to engage with your audience and really hit,
that accelerator pedal on your channel growth.
Unfortunately though, when it comes to comments,
YouTube's built-in comment manager,
can be a little clunky.
And it can be really time consuming to use,
as your channel grows,
especially when you've got more comments to respond to.
But the good news is,
is that there are some YouTube comment management tools,
to make this whole process much easier,
for YouTube content creators.
With things like bulk comment management,
template responses and even the ability to assign
and delegate YouTube comments,
without granting channel management rights.
So we're gonna run through our top picks
when it comes to YouTube comment management systems,
right now.
Plus once we're done I'll also share with you a link,
to grab our YouTube ranking guide,
to help you get your videos to the top of search results.
Maximizing views and organic traffic.
It also covers our top tools to easily help you find,
high ranking search terms,
and a complete overview of how
the ranking process actually works.
So make sure you stick around.
So first up let's set a bit of a baseline,
and let's look at YouTube's built-in comment manager,
so that you can see what's available out of the box,
before we look at some of the more powerful options.
So the easiest way to access
the built-in YouTube comment manager,
is to make sure that you're signed in to the right account,
for your channel on YouTube,
then head to youTube.com/comments.
And that'll take you directly there,
without needing to go through any menus or anything.
So straight away at the top
you can see we've got your public comments,
we've got any that are held for review,
and we've got any that have been pulled out
as likely spam.
So it's a good idea to go through from time to time
and clear those out.
You can see that we probably haven't done that for a while.
1.9000 likely spam.
There is always a good chunk of them,
at least in our experience that aren't spam,
so that's why it is a good idea to go through
and accept the ones or approve the comments,
that are actually good comments.
You also have the ability in here to filter your comments,
now this is really basic and really limited,
but you could essentially do a search through your comments.
So you can click on filter, come down to comment,
and type in what you're looking for.
So if you're trying to find a question
where someone said, like, how do I do something?
You can maybe search for how, hit apply,
and that will go through and sort your comments out
showing all of the comments that have the word, how.
So we clear that now by hitting the X.
And when it comes to actually responding
or engaging with your comments,
you obviously have the big reply button here,
to type in a response.
You can also see the number of replies
that each comment has.
You have the ability to give a comment a like,
or a thumbs up, or a dislike or a thumbs down,
and you can also heart the comment as well.
Under these three little dots here,
the little action menu,
you get the ability to delete the comment,
to report the user, to hide the user from channel,
to always approve comments from this specific user,
or to add this user as a comment moderator.
Now if you do assign someone as a comment moderator
on your YouTube channel,
then they have the ability to flag comments,
on your videos for removal,
but not actually remove them.
So they flag them, so that you can then go through
and process them at a later date.
Your YouTube channel can have multiple comment moderators,
and as I said when a moderator does remove or flag a comment
it's just shown there as flagged by a moderator,
until you approve it or remove it.
So without actually giving someone full access rights
to your channel, they actually don't have the ability
to delete a comment on your behalf.
So that's the built-in YouTube comment manager,
you can see it obviously there's enough there
to be able to respond and to engage with people,
but you can see if you've got a lot of comments
that you need to respond to,
it'll be hard to quickly find
any that you haven't yet responded to,
or to scroll through and find where you were up to.
And obviously if you're looking to delegate to your team
and have other people help you respond to comments,
then that's not really something you can do in this case
without granting them access to your channel.
So the next tool I've got for you is TubeBuddy.
Now this is the lower cost of the next two tools,
paid tools, that I'm going to mention,
but this one packs in a ton of additional functionality
that's overlaid on that YouTube comment manager interface.
There's also a separate mobile app for TubeBuddy
to help you manage comments as well.
Now there are a few really great features
that TubeBuddy is missing,
that our third option does have.
So we will cover those in just a moment
but we're gonna look at what TubeBuddy does have,
to help you decide if it's the right tool for you.
So TubeBuddy is a web browser plugin
meaning that you install it on Chrome,
on Firefox, on Safari
and it's gonna give you a heap of extra functionality.
Now obviously we're just focusing
on the comments side of it here,
but just know that TubeBuddy does so much more,
than just adding these awesome features
to your comment area.
And again, links for everything including TubeBuddy
are in the description below.
So just refresh
that same YouTube comment manager page,
with TubeBuddy and Nabal,
and you can see that we've already got
some extra features in here.
Now I do wanna say that
you still have access to all of the same
built in stuff that you normally have,
but so much more as well.
So straight away you can see at the top here
we've got a TubeBuddy panel here,
and we get to choose how we're seeing the comments.
So we get to choose, show comments.
It's currently set to all,
we can choose ones that I have not replied to,
that have replies which needs to be followed up on,
that contain questions,
you can see that there is a heap of different filtering here
that makes it so much easier to manage your comments.
You can also come down here to advanced,
and you can really dial in the filter,
or the search that you want to apply.
So I'll go back up here and just leave it on all for now.
Now you can also set how many comments
are loaded on the page as you scroll down here.
So we've currently got it set to 20, which is the default
but we can up that to 50 or 100,
if we wanna preload more, to go through them faster.
Now you also get this extra
menu button down here for TubeBuddy.
If we press on this, you can see in here
that we get some canned responses.
So this is like a template response
if you're gonna use something over and over again,
then you can set them in here
so that you don't need to type them out every time.
And you can also use placeholders.
So you can see in this example here
we've got thanks,
and then we've got a squiggly bracket with an N,
an exclamation mark and a thumbs up emoji.
So when we actually apply this,
it's going to insert their channel name,
in this
N area.
So I'll come down here
and go reply on Tyler's comment.
Let's go reply.
Let's choose
the TubeBuddy icon, come down to thanks,
and you can see there it's automatically filled it in,
thanks Tyler Blevins, hope I'm pronouncing that right,
with a thumbs up and I can hit respond or reply,
and that comment is done.
Now obviously with these is it gonna make your commenting
and responding so much faster, but I would be careful,
in just sending the same template of response
to a lot of people.
It really loses the effect that you can have
with your comments and interacting with people
if you're just giving everyone the same response.
So while these are the while it's awesome to have
these features there, it's something that I would say
use sparingly or have a heap of different options,
especially for responding and saying thank you,
or awesome to have you here, those sorts of things.
Now there's a couple of other really cool things
I like about this, you can also see here
it's showing you how many subscribers, each person has.
So as we go through,
this is something that is overlaid from TubeBuddy's,
and if it's available for them to pull that data.
So you can see here 1902, so as we go through,
not everyone has that shown,
just the channels that have that publicly available.
And for some people you can even have direct links
to their social profiles.
You can see here Tyler has his Instagram account,
linked in with his YouTube channel.
So I also again quickly click on this,
and preview Tyler's Instagram from here,
and go and follow him on Instagram if I want to.
So it makes it so much easier and so much more powerful,
to really engage with your audience,
but engage on a deeper level.
And if you are interested, go and follow
and go and leave a comment, or leave a message,
on one of their other social media platforms as well.
And the other thing that I wanted to show you
that I can't seem to see on here right now,
is from time to time you're able to actually see
in the comment feed here,
that TubeBuddy is overlaying,
if the person leaving the comment
is subscribed to your channel or not.
So you can see right away
if they are an existing subscriber,
when you are responding to your comments.
So you can really see just how powerful
having these extra features that TubeBuddy throws
into that comment feed,
is for managing and responding to people much, much faster,
but also making sure that you're not missing anyone,
by having that filter search, so that you can quickly see,
if there's any comments that you haven't responded to yet.
Now as I said TubeBuddy is a paid service.
There is a free version as well
but the free version doesn't let you unlock
all of those advanced comment features.
So if we scroll down on their pricing page here,
you can see they've got a pro plan for $9 a month,
a star plan for 19 a month, or a legend for 49 a month.
But if we go down into the comment area,
to find this comment filters,
you can see that on the free plan, they're limited,
but all the features are unlocked on the Pro,
the Star and the Legend.
So you can get access to all of these features,
for as little as $9 per month.
And obviously if we keep scrolling down here,
you can see all these other awesome features
and things that, you can do
and have access to, with TubeBuddy.
Personally I think the biggest feature
that TubeBuddy is missing
that the next solution I have for you solves,
is the ability to delegate comments to people on your team,
or people who are helping you out to respond to comments,
without giving them access to your channel.
So if I want someone to come in and help me
with these comments, I do need to give them access,
to the channel, even if they're going to be using TubeBuddy.
So that'll really depend on you
if that's going to be a deal breaker or not for you,
and if you're happy to have someone else
have full access, to your YouTube channel.
So the third option that I've got for you,
is the most powerful one.
It's got some killer features,
that none of the other platforms have.
But it is the most expensive option.
But it's also not just for YouTube comments,
it's also a full-blown social media management tool.
And it's also what we use at Primal Videos.
So what I'm talking about,
is called Agorapulse.
First up, it's probably the easiest to track your comments,
and to make sure that you're not missing any,
because essentially it's like an email inbox,
for your social media interactions.
You can easily assign comments to other people on your team,
and again not just for YouTube,
across other platforms as well.
So it could be, for Facebook,
for Instagram, for Twitter
and others as well.
You can easily pull out a list of your top engaged people
on each platform as well.
So if you do actually want to reach out to the people
who are most engaged, across the different platforms,
then this is an amazing feature.
Now I've already said that you can assign comments
to different team members, but you can do all of this
without them needing access to your YouTube channel.
Or to any of your other platforms as well.
All they need, is an Agorapulse account,
and Agorapulse login,
and you can then delegate who can do what,
with the different platforms and the different comments,
on the different platforms.
Now Agorapulse as I said
is also a social media management tool.
Meaning that you can schedule posts,
you can share posts, you can manage all of your comments,
across all the major platforms
and do it all from the one place.
So it really becomes, the hub, the inbox,
for all of your communications
across the different social media platforms.
And it's also not just about
posting and scheduling and responding to comments
and those sorts of things,
it's also an amazing tool for pulling data
and pulling reports.
And they've recently released some new Instagram,
and Instagram story reporting as well.
So you get some extra data and those sorts of things,
to really see what's working,
what types of content is working,
what your audience is resonating with,
across the different platforms.
So in regards to actual YouTube comments,
you can see that we've got them all listed here,
they've all come in fine,
if we click on this same comment here,
you can see it showing my response here from YouTube,
and now we wouldn't normally do that,
we would normally only respond to comments in here,
so that we can track them.
But you can see here that I can write a response,
again you've got your saved replies,
if you want any template responses,
so if we wanna say here, no problem,
and then you can see again it's auto filled
with the channel name there as well,
we can assign this comment to someone else on the team,
we can also assign a label to this person.
So if we see them popping up all the time,
then we can thank them for their ongoing support,
or their ongoing engagement.
You can also see on the side here,
it's boarding information about the user,
about their channel, that they've got 14 subscribers,
a link to the channel so we can go and check it out,
and just like TubeBuddy, if they have other social accounts
that link to their channel,
then you can see all of those in there as well.
So coming back across here, you can see we have the ability
to add those labels.
So whether they are an engaged user,
so they've responded more than once,
whether they are one of our
Primal Video Accelerator members.
We can manage all of that there.
The next one across, is we can bookmark it.
So we can bookmark this actual comment,
if we wanna come back to it later.
We can report it as spam, we can hide it from YouTube,
or we can view this video and this comment on YouTube.
So that we can actually go over to YouTube,
and we can see it on there.
We can also easily bring up any previous comments,
also on this video, or any others in this comment thread.
And you're also given some data on the video itself,
you can see it's got 308 comments,
and the data, the thumbs up and thumbs down,
or likes and dislikes for this exact video.
So you can see here this is really designed
to not send you off to YouTube,
you can really manage almost everything from here.
And I think the biggest thing
that Agorapulse is currently missing,
and I don't think it's their fault,
I think it's something that YouTube haven't opened up
the ability to do yet, is to give or assign a heart,
to one of the comments from outside of YouTube.
So currently if you wanna give a comment a heart,
you still have to go over to that comment on YouTube,
and click the heart button.
So it's definitely not a deal breaker,
but it would be awesome when they have
the ability to add that in as well.
Now just like we saw in TubeBuddy,
you also have the ability to filter your comments down.
So we can filter them down by date,
or we can come into filters here,
and we can choose all of our bookmarked ones,
the ones that are marked as spam,
ones that are assigned to a certain person,
any that have been hidden,
or we can go back and see who has reviewed
each of the individual comments.
You can also create what they call an Inbox Assistant Rule.
Now this is where,
if there's comments from a certain person,
or comments from anyone with a tag
or a label applied to them,
that they can be assigned to a different person.
So any comments from your best friends,
so they can be assigned to you,
so that you're the one that's responding
and so that you don't miss those comments in particular.
And then what makes this even faster
for responding to comments,
is the amazing keyboard shortcuts.
So without even using your mouse or your touchpad,
you can quickly go through
and respond to a heap of comments really, really fast,
just using the keyboard shortcut.
Or quickly clearing out any that aren't worth responding to,
or deleting or hiding them with just the press of a button.
So in regards to the pricing then as I said Agorapulse,
is the most expensive option here.
They've got for pricing plans to choose from,
starting on their medium plan at $79 per month.
Now if you are interested in giving this a go,
there is a free trial version available for 28 days,
and again there is a link in the description box below.
So to summarize that up,
the TubeBuddy plugin is going to be an amazing addition
for anyone, who is looking for that next level up,
on the YouTube comment manager.
Having all that extra functionality, to be able to filter,
your comments down and quickly see,
who you've responded to and who you haven't,
to be able to have template responses and bulk responses,
all of that is going to be a game changer for you.
And yes TubeBuddy is way more
than just those added comment features as well.
Whereas Agorapulse on the other hand,
for comment management and for communication management,
really not just for YouTube,
but for all of your social media platforms,
it's really on the next level.
Just having that ability to add in team members
and add in staff to help you out with your
comments and communication,
is huge, because you don't then need to compromise
the security of your YouTube channel,
by giving everyone access to it.
You can give them access to it inn Agorapulse,
and they only have the ability,
and they only have the ability then,
to respond to comments or the communication.
But obviously it's also so much more than that,
with the really powerful reporting,
but also with these scheduling
and posting functionality as well.
So for us, Agorapulse is an integral part
of our process and systems,
for everything from posting and scheduling,
to responding to comments,
but also the reporting elements are amazing as well.
Now earlier in this video,
I did say that I'll be sharing a link,
on how you can grab our free YouTube ranking guide,
to help you get your videos,
to the top of search results,
so that you're able to maximize your views,
and that organic traffic on YouTube.
It also covers our top tools
to help you easily find high ranking search terms,
and the complete overview
on how the entire ranking process works.
So there's a link on screen, to that amazing PDF,
and I'll see you in the next video.